According to the Baptist Center for Ethics, which produced the film and hosted the event, the screening was one of the few autonomous faith events held around the Sept. 4-6 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The film looks at the lives of undocumented migrants who find their way to communities across the United States. A second screening was held at Park Road Baptist Church with faith leaders from Arkansas and North Carolina.

Bishop Gordy chairs the ELCA’s Immigration Ready Bench and has long been an advocate in support of fair and humane immigration reform and against harmful state immigration laws.

“They’re mean-spirited, and they don’t do anything to make us safer,” Bishop Gordy told the audience in a post-screening session with the religious leaders. “What they do is foster a spirit of hostility and suspicion and ethnic discrimination.”